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Astrophysicists Make Most Precise Measurement Yet of Milky Way’s Central Black Hole Mass

In this illustration of the center of the Milky Way, stars are seen to be in close orbit around Sagittarius A*. Image credit: Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. da Silva, Spaceengine / M. Zamani, NOIRLab.
Dec 15, 2021 by News Staff

Sagittarius A*, supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, has a mass of 4.3 million times that of the Sun, according to an analysis of observations by the GRAVITY instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI). In this illustration of the center of the Milky Way, stars are seen to be in close orbit around Sagittarius A*. Image credit: Gemini Observatory / NOIRLab / NSF / AURA / J. da Silva, Spaceengine / M. Zamani,...

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Screenshot from the OneZoom tree of life explorer with leaves colored according to extinction risk and showing the ‘spiral’ view of the tree. Image credit: OneZoom.

OneZoom: Researchers Create Interactive Tree of Life

Dec 15, 2021 by News Staff

The interactive tree of life explorer OneZoom maps the connections between 2.2 million living species, the closest thing yet to a single view of all species...

All-sky map of the Milky Way in motion using the Gaia data. Areas with significant motion are shown in black/purple and those with relatively low motion in yellow. A number of large scale filamentary disc structures are evident about the midplane. The map also shows the Magellanic Clouds and their connecting stellar bridge to left, while the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy currently being torn apart can be seen on the right (main body). Image credit: Laporte et al., doi: 10.1093/mnrasl/slab109.

Astronomers Find Fossil Spiral Arms in Milky Way Galaxy

Dec 15, 2021 by News Staff

Using data from ESA’s Gaia satellite and archival spectroscopic surveys, astronomers have mapped the Milky Way disk substructure at distances over 10,000...

Life reconstruction of Brevirostruavis macrohyoideus. Image credit: Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Cretaceous-Period Bird Had Hyper-Elongated Tongue

Dec 14, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

The bony tongue of the newly-identified enantiornithine bird species, Brevirostruavis macrohyoideus, was nearly as long as its head. Life reconstruction...

An analysis of citizen scientist photos of a 2018 STEVE event show the purple and green light emissions occur at different altitudes but along the same magnetic field lines; this indicates they’re driven by the same region of the magnetosphere nearly 30,000 km above Earth’s surface. Image credit: Neil Zeller.

Study: Different STEVE Emissions are Driven by Same Narrow Region in Earth’s Magnetosphere

Dec 14, 2021 by News Staff

A rare upper-atmosphere phenomenon called Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement (STEVE) has been well documented by amateur aurora watchers from...

Cladarosymblema narrienense: (A) lateral head reconstruction of Cladarosymblema narrienense; color-coded as follows: dermal skull roof (dark blue), cheek (light blue), lower jaw (pale green), opercular series (purple), and pectoral (dark green); bones marked with ‘?’ remain unknown in this species; (B-E) micro-CT 3D rendering of all segmented bones in the holotype. Image credit: Clement et al., doi: 10.7717/peerj.12597.

Paleontologists Take Fresh Look at Carboniferous Tetrapodomorph Fish

Dec 14, 2021 by News Staff

Paleontologists have used high-resolution micro-CT and synchrotron tomography to scan two well-preserved 3D specimens of the tetrapodomorph fish Cladarosymblema...

An artist’s impression of the likely-endothermic Dimetrodon grandis, an early synapsid that was around for about 20 million years from the Early Permian epoch, 295 million years ago. Image credit: Max Bellomio.

Study Sheds New Light on Origin of Whole-Body Endothermy

Dec 14, 2021 by News Staff

The whole-body endothermy seen in modern birds and mammals is long held to have evolved independently in each group, a reasonable assumption when it was...

The copper magnified 500,000 times under a scanning electron microscope shows its tiny nano-scale pores. Image credit: RMIT University.

Novel Copper Surface Shows Exceptional Bactericidal Efficacy

Dec 14, 2021 by News Staff

A team of materials scientists from RMIT University and CSIRO has designed and fabricated a micro-nano copper structure and demonstrated its exceptional...

The 2,400-year-old tea residue from a bowl found in the ancient capital of the Zhu Kingdom in Zoucheng, Shandong province, China. Image credit: Jiang et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-95393-w.

2,400-Year-Old Tea Residue Found in China

Dec 13, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Archaeologists have found the ancient charred remains of tea in a bowl from a Warring State period tomb in the ancient capital city site of the Zhu Kingdom,...

La Torre 6A tracksite map with the studied trackway in blue and the other footprints in gray. Image credit: Navarro-Lorbés et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-02557-9.

120-Million-Year-Old Footprints of Fast-Running Dinosaurs Found in Spain

Dec 13, 2021 by News Staff

Some species of theropods (two-legged dinosaurs) could reach speeds of 45 kmh (28 mph), according to analysis of Early-Cretaceous trackways of theropod...

WISE images of the BD+60 1417 system. Image credit: Léopold Gramaize / Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project.

Jupiter-Like Planetary Object Spotted 146 Light-Years Away

Dec 13, 2021 by News Staff

A team of professional astronomers and citizen scientists from the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project has discovered a planetary-mass object co-moving with...

The megalithic stele monument at the archeological site of Sakaro Sodo in Gedeo zone, Ethiopia. Image credit: Andrew Duff.

Ethiopian Megalithic Stelae Much Older than Previously Thought

Dec 13, 2021 by News Staff

An international team of researchers has conducted an archaeological survey and test excavation at Sakaro Sodo, one of the ancient megalithic stele sites...

This Hubble image shows NGC 3568, a barred spiral galaxy some 57 million light-years away in the constellation of Centaurus. The color image is made up of observations from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) instruments in the ultraviolet, near-infrared, and optical parts of the spectrum. It is based on data obtained through three filters. The color results from assigning different hues to each monochromatic image associated with an individual filter. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / M. Sun.

Hubble Space Telescope Snaps Beautiful Image of NGC 3568

Dec 13, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured the brilliance of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 3568. This Hubble image shows NGC 3568, a barred spiral...

The Adler’s mouse opossum (Marmosa adleri) is much smaller than its sister species (pictured here), the Alston’s mouse opossum (Marmosa alstoni). Image credit: Victor Acosta.

New Species of Mouse Opossum Discovered in Panama

Dec 10, 2021 by Natali Anderson

A team of researchers from the American Museum of Natural History, Siena College and the Bell Museum at the University of Minnesota, St. Paul, has discovered...

The Chicxulub impact 66 million years ago generated a tsunami-like wave in an inland sea that killed and buried fish, mammals, insects and a Triceratops, the first victims of a cataclysm that led to Earth’s last mass extinction. Image credit: Robert DePalma.

Chicxulub Impact Occurred during Northern Spring or Summer: Study

Dec 10, 2021 by News Staff

About 66 million years ago, a 10-km-wide asteroid crashed into Earth near the site of the small town of Chicxulub in what is now Mexico. The impact unleashed...

This is a composite view of X-rays, molecular gas, and warm ionized gas near the Milky Way’s center (yellow represents Hubble data, blue is Chandra data, green is ALMA data, and red is VLA data). The orange-colored features are of glowing hydrogen gas. One such feature, at the top tip of the jet is interpreted as a hydrogen cloud that has been hit by the outflowing jet. The jet scatters off the cloud into tendrils that flow northward. Farther down near the black hole are X-ray observations of superheated gas colored blue and molecular gas in green. These data are evidence that the black hole occasionally accretes stars or gas clouds, and ejects some of the superheated material along its spin axis. The graphic of a translucent, vertical white fan is added to show the suggested axis of a mini-jet from the supermassive black hole at the Galaxy’s heart. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Gerald Cecil, University of North Carolina / Joseph DePasquale, STScI.

Astronomers Spot Nuclear Jet near Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole

Dec 10, 2021 by News Staff

Astronomers have uncovered evidence that Sagittarius A*, the 4-million-solar-mass black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, is not a sleeping monster...

A simplified evolutionary tree showing where bright colors appear on birds and other living species from the study and where these colors may have appeared on their extinct relatives, including dinosaurs; skin (shown in orange), and scales and beak keratin (yellow) could have been brightly pigmented in extinct groups, whereas feathers and claws would probably not have been; areas without bright color are shown in gray. Image credit: Sarah Davis / University of Texas at Austin.

Non-Avian Dinosaurs May Have Had Bright-Colored Skin, Scales and Beaks

Dec 10, 2021 by News Staff

Non-avian dinosaurs may have had bright color on their skin, scales and beaks in a manner similar to modern birds, according to a paper published in the...

Gaire et al. demonstrate that substrates conditioned by human skin or treated with compounds from human skin can prevent bed bug arrestment. Image credit: CDC / World Health Organization.

Human Skin Triglycerides Repel Bed Bugs, Study Shows

Dec 9, 2021 by News Staff

Bed bugs (Cimex lectularius) are blood-sucking insects that live in close proximity to humans. They have proliferated globally and have become one of the...

Left: Assyrian infantry archer in scale armor depicted in a relief from the south west palace of Sennacherib (reigned 704-681 BCE) in Nineveh. Right: Assyrian cavalry archer in scale armor depicted in a relief from the palace of Assurbanipal (reigned 669-631 BCE) in Nineveh. Image credit: Trustees of the British Museum.

Archaeologists Find 2,700-Year-Old Assyrian-Style Leather Armor in China

Dec 9, 2021 by News Staff

The ancient leather armor, datable to 786-543 BCE, was originally made of about 5,444 smaller scales and 140 larger scales, which, together with leather...

An artist’s impression of b Centauri b and its host stars. Image credit: ESO / L. Calçada.

SPHERE Directly Images Wide-Orbit Gas Giant in Nearby Binary System

Dec 9, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

Named b Centauri (AB)b (or b Centauri b), the newfound exoplanet is estimated to be only 15 million years old and 10 times the mass of Jupiter, according...

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